Well before the latest generation of violent Imoca foilers had made moving around on hands and knees the norm, Will Oxley was already leading by example while he shamelessly crawled around the deck of the ultra-powerful 100-footer Comanche. ‘I look like an idiot, but it is safe and I am not going to have an accident.’ The latest Imoca designs take life onboard to a new level of brutality – this is Oxley’s former Volvo Race skipper Charlie Enright and 11th Hour starting the long leg 3 of the current Ocean Race from Cape Town. It is notable that many of the skippers lining up with new boats for the 2024 Vendée Globe asked their designers to focus on finding a less harsh motion in waves even at the price of a reduced top speed – both for their own health and that of their boats
and extremely noisy… always. People are focused and not paying attention to me. So being very careful – in the galley with hot water, wearing wet weather gear and boots to protect your feet, life jacket always on, bum-bag always on. SH: And now? WO: I had been talking to Sue about how I love sailing, but that it is always in a high stress situation where I am constantly making decisions. Then last summer I got a phonecall about the Andoo Comanche programme and they said they would like me to do the delivery from Antigua to Aus- tralia; it was a great low stress opportunity to learn more about the boat and some of the team in Woody’s (John Winning) new ownership, plus help them keep things safe. So a trip to Panama, through the canal
reset, then I will usually do my job better. SH: These 100-footers are brutes. Naviga- tor Stan Honey slipped and fell a long way across the inside of Comanche during an early transatlantic attempt, hitting hard when he landed and giving everyone a real scare. With this cavernous bare interior how do you prevent that sort of thing from happening more often? WO: I am ridiculously careful on how I move about a boat. And everyone knows that. I have no qualms about coming out of the hatch on Comanche on my knees and then crawling to the back of the boat. I look silly, I look like an idiot – but it is safe, and I am not going to have an accident. Towards the end of the Middle Sea Race we had a person put their hand on a winch to steady themselves in the dark… the winch sud- denly came on and mangled their hand. That is the other thing – whenever I come
on deck in the night I shout, ‘Will on deck!’ Otherwise if I wander to the back and then get washed over the side, I am gone. Even in Comanche’s huge cockpit it gets very busy
and then a glorious trip to French Poly - nesia, averaging 16kt with three or four gybes max! Then Sydney to Southport and Brisbane to Hamilton Island, two light-air races and we were not expected to do well… but again we were successful. SH: In the Sydney to Southport Race you made a key call towards the end? WO: If you are going to do something dif- ferent, then start looking early. Around three days before the race I started saying in our daily briefings that we would need to head offshore. I thought it was a live option – but even then I knew it would involve a massive split from the leaders. If we stayed with Wild Oats and Black
Jackwe are playing their light wind inshore game, but still when the time came for me to say ‘bear away 30°, go 15kt at 40° dif- ferent course to our opposition’, everyone said, ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure!’ Actually, of course, I wasn’t exactly 100
per cent sure, but I said, ‘Yep – I’m sure!’ Luckily I’ve sailed with enough of the crew before, plus we had been talking about splitting away and running this strategy for days, so that we could and did commit. SH: Risks? WO: Then the whole strategy changes! Meteorologically, staying offshore will almost certainly be a quick time into the finish. Tactically, when an opportunity emerged to position ourselves across the fleet in front of the others, to shut down any opportunity for a weird westerly to come in and spring them along – we did
that, coming back in a little early straight in front of them to slam the door shut. That is another thing you learn from expe- rience. The goal was line honours – not to have the best meteorological race, but to close the door on the opposition. SH: But there were some nervy early losses? WO: That time we took a 20-mile hit right away, but luckily they parked. Now we were heading 40° away from them at 17kt… it must have looked weird on the tracker! My wife Sue thought, ‘Oh no – he is doing that thing again…’ And, sure, those things can go wrong, badly wrong. But that was always going to be a light-air race and against the narrower 100-footers we are not fast in that stuff… so the expectations were always for a poor finish. Instead it was a pretty good start with a brand new team! SH: And by Hamilton Island Week and then the 2022 Hobart race that strong afterguard was getting even stronger… WO: By Hamilton Island we were consis- tently taking a few light-air races off Wild Oats, which when you look at our big, wide boat (especially ashore!) is something that really should not happen. But, yes, the afterguard was turning into
a bit of a super-group. And as well as our usual all-star line-up we were regularly adding in people like Iain Murray, Graham Taylor and Seve Jarvin, plus Pablo Arrate, Justin Slattery and a number of other well- known legends of the big boat scene. By Hobart we had this perfect mix of fast- driving 18ft skiff sailors – including John Winning himself – and some very experi- enced Volvo sailors. The blend continues today. But it is fair to
say that while the skiffies are whooping it up when it starts to blow, those of us with grey hair on the boat are much more concerned as we know just how close we are to ‘having one’. On a boat like this planning is vital and a long way out, a lot further out than some of these brilliant youngsters will sometimes believe. We are working hard on doing that. And they’re getting the hang of it pretty well now, as you saw in the Hobart race. Keep it simple, keep it safe, let the boat
do its thing. A big part of my job is to con- tinue to paint the picture, keep it all simple: ‘This is where we are going to go.’ I repeatedly overstate the obvious. ‘We
are going to leave this mark to starboard.’ ‘We have a shallow reef coming up on port.’ ‘This is the time the sail change will happen – the numbers displayed on the mast are correct and so that is when we hoist.’ So that people can get on with their job, and they know the point where we are clear to sail comfortably – and the point at which it becomes marginal. So painting that picture on a big boat so
that everyone is aware of the situation, now and in 10 minutes’ time… Also so that if the onboard systems
should ever all shut down and you are barrelling towards something interesting at high speed… everyone has some chance of knowing what to expect. Will Oxley was with Blue Robinson q
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